Bondoc

Mesosiderite (MES)

The Bondoc meteorite was
found in 1956 on the Bondoc Peninsula, Luzon, Philippines. A
single very large mass weighing 890 kilograms was found in the
jungle. Bondoc is a mesosiderite, stony-iron, and is known for
it's very large metallic nodules set in a silicate and olivine
rich matrix. The Bondoc meteorite was cut into very large slices
and distributed worldwide. The problem was that once cut, all of
these slices have fallen apart due to oxidation in the jungle.
These days, pretty much all Bondoc is in small pieces, and large
metal nodules, some as large as softballs and weighing several
kilos each. The good thing is that whatever damage was going to
be done by oxidation has already been done, the pieces now left
show great stability.

Harvey Nininger was in the
Philippines in 1959 and saw a small piece in a government office
and arranged to have the meteorite recovered from the deep
jungle, a major task at that time. The following is an account
of the dangerous recovery from Nininger's book, "Find a Falling
Star":

"The last phase of the recovery
was rather risky and gave us some worries moments. The day we
got it on the bamboo raft for the trip down the rover and across
the stretch of sea, a typhoon showed up. The water got so
turbulent that we had to hire two motorized fishing boats to
stabilize the raft. Night came and one of the boats started to
founder so we steered close to the shore as I was afraid to lose
about $3000 worth of recovery gear that I had borrowed from the
office -besides the meteor. As we got near the coast of
Mulanay one boat sank and we almost lost four men trying to keep
the raft from collapsing as the waves were unusually big".

It took three years from the time
Nininger heard about the meteorite until it was recovered and
shipped to Arizona.

Last year I made a large exchange with
the US Nation Museum (Smithsonian) and I exchanged out some
kilos of Bondoc material, all from one large slice which fell
apart in the museum, and was divided up into many pieces. All of
these pieces are part of USNM Collection # 2578 and come with a
photocopy of the original museum label which I received in the
exchange. Bondoc is a very nice and very historic meteorite.